On the 12th Banja Luka Open we participated for the fifth time and made so far the highest ranking by winning third place.
The tournament was held in the Sports Center "Borik" nestled in a beautiful setting near the river Vrbas.
On the 12th Banja Luka Open we participated for the fifth time and made so far the highest ranking by winning third place. The truth is that the tournament was much more modest than what we are used to, namely - with only four teams, but the tradition was held on both sides. If you paid attention in class (Banja Luka Open XI, X, IX, VIII) you should already know that the final match is subscribed for the hosts and the team Zavidovići. For the years before mentioned I'm not sure, but it is so since we first time came to the tournament. In brief, we were left to do our best and to finally reach some respectable place in this tournament, the one that is not for the consolation only.
We played our matches versus Zavidovići and Banja Luka engaged and combatly, but there's not much to talk about. These are the teams that are strong enough and are able to shift into higher gear in the case that a team of our level plays especially good. We never harbored false illusions, but somewhere deep inside is always a hope for "something more than a strong resistance", whatever that means.
But, something like that was made by team from Zagreb, our direct competitors for third place: they won the first set versus Banja Luka. Further development of this match was as expected.
The team strenght ratios are well known, and so the most interesting matches were left for the end, with a short break before these. To be more precise, in the end it looked like this:
OKI Banja Luka : SDI Hrabri 2:1 OKI Feniks : IOK Zavidovići 0:2
The opening was performed after the first two matches. Routinely and shortly, warmly and sincerely. That's how it's done by Mr. Novak Grbić.
OKI Feniks : OKI Banja Luka 0:2 IOK Zavidovići : SDI Hrabri 2:0 OKI Banja Luka : IOK Zavidovići 2:0 OKI Feniks : SDI Hrabri 2:0
This time hosts were better than the eternal rivals. Not much convincing, but good enough to win.
We were concentrated on his game for prestige, we were able to play as best we can and to overcome team Hrabri. We were not very clear about what is going on after their great battle against the hosts.
However, we had to push away this fact from our heads to be able to play the best game we can.
Of course, the final order was:1. OKI "Banja Luka" 2. IOK "Zavidovići" 3. OKI "Feniks " 4. SDI "Hrabri"
At the closing ceremony inside the atmosphere of the known motel Golden Card were awarded trophies for placements, plaques for participating teams, for the referees, for the best waitress and for the best ball retriever. Congratulations to the host team for the game they show, for the title and for the standard excellent organization.
During the socializing our President, on behalf of the club, received another prestigious acknowledgement from the president of the Croatian league and captain of the team Hrabri.
He came with invitation for us to participate in a league in which suppose to compete selected teams from Croatia, B i H, Slovenia and Serbia. Would you like it to be called Adriatic League or League Alpe-Adria, will it be really organized and will the Feniks find the strength to participate? In this moment and for this story it is not so important, as is important the fact that the call here was deserve by our constant work and behavior. My heart soared when I heard this story, but the details will be expessed some other time.
Milošev, Đuričin, Golijanin, Brandić, Vlajkov, Setorić, Dragan, Budurin, Zavišin and coach Dragin.
Without much relaxation we said goodbye to our friends and went to a nearby Laktaši to rest before tomorrow's championship match. Local newspapers have published news about events during the entire weekend.
